Ode to the Child Who Loved Me Back

My little love.

You still live in me

and I don’t mean memory,

I mean marrow.

You’re the hum behind my heartbeat,

the echo in my no’s,

the soft tremble in my yes.

Do you know what you did?

You survived.

That survival made me someone I needed

but hadn’t met yet.

Now I speak up

loud, clear, unshaken.

I don’t flinch when I take up space,

and it’s you I thank for that.

Some days,

I wish I could fold back time

and meet you right there..

tucked in that silence,

tending to bruises no one could see.

I’d hold you without saying a word..

Allowing you to drape me in sorrow

Knowing I could carry us the rest of the way.

But I’m here instead,

on the other side,

where we made it.

None of it was your fault.

Not the pain.

Not the silence.

Not the way the world cracked around you

and told you to smile through it.

There were people who broke things in you

they didn’t even understand.

But you held on.

Even when your body trembled

and your thoughts spiraled.

Anxiety,

that thief in our night,

had no right to you..

and still,

you survived it.

We survived it.

I forgave you for the ways

you tried to cope.

I understand now.

You did the best you could

with the scraps you were given.

No amount of blades cascading along your flesh,

Or whelps from self-hatred

because you didn’t believe you were brave enough,

could ever make me hate you.

Even then, beneath every scar,

you were building the bones of a woman

who would never bow again.

And look what you made.

Look what we became.

We’re not stuck in survival anymore.

We live here now.

We breathe without asking permission.

We create.

Your love for words,

that was our first rescue.

I write because you wrote.

You felt because you refused not to.

You laid the bricks like breadcrumbs

that let me walk myself home.

I used to pour myself into others,

hoping they’d notice the spill.

Now I align myself with you,

that bold little girl who whispered,

“If I can just make it through this..”

And you did.

I’m a mother now,

to daughters who will never apologize

for being tender.

They cry out loud,

and they are heard.

They feel fully,

and you are their haven.

They are everything

we once begged the world to allow.

I don’t let them carry

what we were forced to.

Because healing―

real healing―

means breaking that chain

on purpose.

Sometimes I still ask,

Why did it have to be so hard?

But then I remember:

what nearly broke us

also built the bones we stand on.

We’ve become everything you prayed for.

An author.

A mother.

A whole woman.

We don’t just write books.

We write redemption.

We write proof.

And now you―

whoever you are, reading this―

you can too.

Start with a word,

a sigh,

a question.

Say what you needed to hear,

and let that become your mirror.

To a the girl I once knew, I love that happiness has found you.